How Wolverhampton’s Local Information System is driving consistency of data use and helping deliver evidence-based strategic planning

Background

The Corporate Strategy and Improvement Unit at Wolverhampton City Council provides statistics, information, research and intelligence for decision making and is responsible for demographic data held by the council.

Debbie Turner, Policy Officer (Research & Information) in the Unit, says the decision to develop a Local information System (LIS) came from a recognition that data wasn’t being used effectively and that there was a great deal of duplication of effort when it came to local intelligence.

“We were getting a lot of requests for the same information, often from the people working together on the same projects or in the same service while at the same time we knew there was good work going on in pockets across the council and other organisations,” she says. “We also spent a lot of our time co-ordinating data collection from a range of services for people within the council or for partner organisations.”

Debbie says one of their key aims was to improve information management and to ensure that the most up-to-date data, from the right sources was being used. The Unit started to develop a business case for an LIS and created a project group consisting of key strategic partners from across the city. The business case was signed off in September 2010 and the Unit set about a tender process. After assessing three bids InstantAtlas was awarded the contract.

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East Riding Data Observatory – Supporting the localism agenda in the East Riding of Yorkshire through a data presentation initiative

Background

The East Riding Observatory is an online resource that provides easy access to population, economic, community safety, health and education data for local authorities, partner agencies and communities across the East Riding of Yorkshire. The East Riding Data Observatory is a member of the Humber Data Observatory Group. Other Observatories in this group are: North Lincolnshire Council, North East Lincolnshire and Kingston upon Hull.

Gareth Hughes is senior research officer at the Observatory. He explains that Regional Improvement and Efficiencies Partnership (RIEP) funding was made available and Humber Data Observatory Group members were asked to highlight areas for investment.

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Perth and Kinross Council – Monitoring performance against environmental standards using data visualisation

Background

Perth & Kinross Council delivers or facilitates a wide range of services including education, land use planning, roads, housing, care for vulnerable people, parks, street cleansing, economic development and refuse collection.

The Council produces an annual report to provide an assessment of the current environmental state and help it monitor trends. The report also provides a strong evidence base to evaluate the effectiveness of the Council’s efforts to deal with environmental pressures in land use and sustainability terms. The first State of the Environment Report was published in September 2007. The indicators are updated as and when data becomes available and a number of them are used in the Perth & Kinross Single Outcome Agreement. The Council views the report as an essential tool in meeting its sustainability goals, improving the environment and providing the public with access to information.

The State of the Environment indicators are organised into nine key areas which include climate change, air quality, landscape and geology, biodiversity, historic environment, transportation, waste, communities and energy.

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How the London Borough of Newham is supporting evidence-based policy-making and decision-making through data presentation

Background

Newham Info is the name given to the London Borough of Newham’s information and intelligence hub. The idea started out as a data and statistics hub with an associated website which came online in late 2003. However, the vision was to develop an observatory and create a resource where users could find data from a wide range of sources and covering a wealth of issues to support evidence-based policy-making across the public sector in the borough. 

 

Getting started

Stephen Croney is Information Manager, Improvement and Performance Service in Policy, Partnerships and Communications at the London Borough of Newham. He joined the council in 2009 with responsibility for the boroughs GIS systems and turning the existing data store into an observatory that focused more on making information easier to access and use, ‘Telling the Newham Story’.  “The idea was to have a site that could be used by anyone to improve decision-making, support partnership working and better prepare the borough, its partners and stakeholders for the future,” he says.

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Havering Data Intelligence Hub | Ensuring strategic partners are able to access data and get a better understanding of local need

Background

The Havering Data Intelligence Hub provides data, information and research about the London Borough of Havering. The Hub was set up to benefit the local authority, its partners and the public by helping them understand key information about the borough through data, analysis, surveys and reports.

Getting started

Rebecca Booker is Area Intelligence Business Analyst at the council. She says one of the key drivers for the hub was the need for all the partners to have access to the same data.“You often find that people obtain data from different places and this can be confusing as there is little consistency. We wanted to make sure all the data was in one place where everyone can access it,” says Rebecca.

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Staffordshire Observatory – Giving local strategic partners data in a customisable format to help them make better commissioning decisions

Background

Staffordshire Observatory provides research and analytical support to Staffordshire Strategic Partnership. Its overall aim is to offer a robust, comprehensive evidence base which informs decision making, commissioning and service delivery, leading to better outcomes for the residents of Staffordshire.

The Observatory has developed a website to provide a one-stop-shop for access to a wide range of data, information and intelligence on Staffordshire and its communities. We spoke to Senior Research and Information Officer Duncan Smith about the Observatory and how it is currently using data visualisation to meet its objectives.

Getting started

Duncan says four years ago they began to consider a data hub that could be used for sharing intelligence between strategic partners. It was felt that the partnership needed a web-based system that would promote evidence-based commissioning decisions and ensure easy access to a shared intelligence.

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Devon County Council – Using a shared online resource to ensure Devon’s strategic partners make evidence-based decisions using the same data

 

 

Devon County Council’s Economy Service was set up to support and strengthen the Devon economy by developing the right conditions for economic growth. The Economy Service facilitates and delivers a variety of programmes and initiatives. It works alongside a range of partners from the business and community sectors and other public organisations to improve business performance and job opportunities.

One of the projects the Economy Service has successfully developed is the Devonomics website (http://www.devonomics.info). The website allows users to view data on key aspects of the Devon economy. It is split into three categories (People, Place and Prosperity) each with their own sub categories displaying a range of data.

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Watch the latest InstantAtlas Essentials Video

1. 18 – ‘How to create a gradient for your report background’ by Andrea Kirk of the InstantAtlas Support Team

Video Transcript

Welcome to this week’s video tutorial.

Today I would like to show you, how you can create a gradient for your report background and activate drop shadows for your components. These are just two small examples of the vast possibilities you have when designing InstantAtlas reports.

I will show you how this works using this example report that you can see on the screen in front of you. I already changed the design slightly from the default by using a different colour palette for my legend and applying a dark blue border to my components and buttons.

To give the report a little bit of a 3D-feel, I will now add a drop shadow to my components. To do this I need to open the default.css file in the Style Editor. On the left hand side I see the list of all the available style classes. The class called ‘Panel’ defines the styles for all panels in the report. In here I have the option to set the property called ‘dropShadowEnabled’ to true. I can also select a different shadow colour, for example a dark blue. The shadow will always be a lighter version of this colour. The property ‘shadowDirection’ allows me to define from where the light comes. I quite like the light to come from the top left which means that I need to set my shadow direction to ‘right’.  If I now save my changes and refresh my report. I can see the shadows on the panels.

As a second step I would like to generate a gradient in the report background. I can define a gradient in the style class ‘Application’ under the property ‘backgroundGradientColors’. I will choose a very light blue as my first colour and a dark blue as my second colour. If I save these changes now and refresh my report you can see that the gradient only shows at the very edge of the report and the big rectangle, where all the components sit in, overlays it. To fix this I can make the rectangle filling transparent. I do this in the style class ‘backgroundRect’ using the property ‘backgroundAlpha’ which needs to be set to 0 to be fully transparent. I will also let the border of the rectangle disappear by changing the ‘borderThickness’ to 0.

I save my changes again, refresh my report and I can now see the gradient background fully behind my components. As you can see, it is fairly easy to change the design of your report drastically by adding a gradient or to make your components stand out with drop shadows.

Try it yourself. If you have any questions please contact support@geowise.co.uk.

Roundup of new InstantAtlas reports

We have done a quick round up of some new InstantAtlas reports published this March. The reports include interesting themes ranging from Debt Counselling, Presentation of STDs at state level, Multiple deprivation analysis at combined city and county level, Mortgage repossessions in England for 2010,  Local elections at city level and state level influenza vaccination coverage in the US.

We feel this selection of great reports will give you real insight into how InstantAtlas can be employed in mapping, reporting and presenting your statistical data.

London 2010 – Local Elections Atlas by the Greater London Authority (Intelligence Unit)

View Report | InstantAtlas for Election Mapping – More details >>

This report includes a great deal of detail on every aspect of the 2010 London Borough Council general elections. No other single volume presents the full results and election statistics from the 32 London boroughs enabling the reader to analyse and compare the results across London in one place. The report presents data for every candidate in every ward (excluding the City of London which operates on a different electoral model).

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Leicestershire, UK Deprivation Report 2010

View Report

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Kirklees Council, 2009 Population atlas by indicator themes

View Report | InstantAtlas for Community and City Statistics mapping – More details>>

Area Profile 2009 Population Atlas for Kirklees. England. Published by the Kirklees Council Geographic and Research Information Team. Indicators in this report include: Welfare Benefits, Local Economy, Housing, Ethnicity, Pension Claimants and Recorded Crime

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UK Consumer Credit Counselling Service, Debt view atlas presenting data on numbers of clients counselled by region in England, 2010

View Report | InstantAtlas for Economic Reporting – More details >>

Report data can be viewed by clients counselled and debt management plans by region. Geographies available include post code area and post code district.

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CDC National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases – US Influenza Vaccination Coverage

View Report | InstantAtlas for Public Health Reporting – More details >>

This report by the CDC provides vaccination coverage estimates for 2010-11 and previous influenza seasons from multiple sources.

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State of Alaska – Section of Epidemiology STD Presentation

View Report

Single map report on Chlamydia & Gonorrhea rates, by Alaska Native Health Corporation Service Region, Alaska 2001-2010

Cambridgeshire County Council – ‘Combining customer insight and Output Area Classification data to create visualisations of local information and analysis’

The Research Group at Cambridgeshire County Council has created a number of interactive atlases that combine local data with the social classification tool Output Area Classification (OAC). These have added insight into local areas across the county and provided a fresh approach for interrogating data that is held on resident populations. The interactive maps use various datasets and have been combined with OAC to offer insight into local communities. Gurjeet Rajania, Senior Research Officer: Consultation and Customer Knowledge and Hendrik Grothuis LIP Project Manager, have now just released their most comprehensive atlas to date; the Ward Profile Atlas. This includes a wide range of socio-economic and demographic indicators to develop a fuller picture of issues affecting local areas in Cambridgeshire.

Starting point

We spoke to Gurjeet and Hendrik about their use of interactive maps and customer insight data. Gurjeet explains their starting point was to use data from the 2008 Place Survey and display with OAC. The Place Survey was designed to give a snapshot of residents’ opinions of their local areas and was a requirement of every Local Authority. The survey included a series of national indicators covering satisfaction with local amenities and services, community cohesion and environmental concerns.

Gurjeet and Hendrik wanted to display the data with a high level of granularity at ward level across the county for each of the national indicators. They also wanted to overlay the map with OAC. Hendrik has been producing interactive maps using InstantAtlas for the county council for some time and Gurjeet worked with InstantAtlas in the past to display indices of deprivation at another Local Authority. They both recognised that it would be a useful data presentation tool. Hendrik worked on developing the InstantAtlas template while Gurjeet made sure the data was collected and available in the right

Meeting the need

There has been a great deal of interest from the council’s community engagement team and also from its transport services and community safety teams. This is because it allows them to see a detailed picture of what residents in the area think about local services and it therefore helps them assess gaps in provision. Gurjeet and Hendrik were pleased by the positive response and quickly set about producing another OAC atlas. What followed were the Living Costs and Food Survey atlas and the full OAC atlas.

The combined Place Survey and OAC atlases have been commended by the council’s chief executive, Mark Lloyd. On his blog, he said: “As we look to target our services, we need a really deep understanding of the County so we can answer the ‘who, what, where and when’ questions. I encourage colleagues to make maximum use of the intelligence about the County held by the Research Group.”

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Brighton and Hove Local Information Service, United Kingdom

Image Credit - Xgkkp, Wikipedia

The Brighton and Hove Local Information Service (BHLIS) provides local strategic partnership (LSP) members, and the public, access to a wide range of national and local statistics and indicators relating to Brighton & Hove at many different geographic levels.

Simon Ewing, Local Information Service Manager, Brighton and Hove City Council, explains that the initial approach was to run everything in-house and the LIS project started out as CityStats – originally driven through the regeneration agenda (neighbourhood renewal). Citystats required a web team to carry out development work in-house and although it was initially cutting edge, things were moving fast and the team realised that it was becoming increasingly cumbersome and expensive.

Around the same time the council managed to get funding via a European Social Fund initiative called EQUAL to develop its LIS.

Starting point

The council began a tender process with the intention to develop a LIS that was more user-friendly, technically more advanced and more cost-effective.

The council was impressed with InstantAtlas from Geowise and in particular the Flash-based mapping function and ability to allow for a devolved/shared administrative structure. In addition, the company was offering a good package in terms of maintenance and hosting and as a result Geowise was chosen to run the LIS.

The LIS was developed and allows users to access data across a range of themes and geographical levels in Brighton & Hove. It allows users to explore and investigate key pre-defined sets of indicators using a combination of interactive maps and charts. It is also possible to create custom tables for the same collections of indicators for download.

Meeting the need

According to Simon awareness levels in the first year were good. “However, there was a gap between what it could initially deliver and what it was expected to deliver straight away. This was compounded by a lack of relevant user skills.”

Simon says the BHLIS team started out with the aim of delivering…

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